Monday, December 31, 2012

Officials in Prince Georges county have adopted a sense of
entitlement when it comes to the proposed new headquarters for the FBI. The
county believes it has been short changed when it comes to sharing in the
largess of federal government spending when compared to the other counties that
border the nation’s capital. When the FBI issued a solicitation of interest
from neighboring jurisdictions, Prince Georges county saw this as their chance
to even the score.

Not so fast said Montgomery.
According to this story by Miranda S. Spivack and Victor Zapana in
The Washington Post, the county’s economic development director “confirmed that
he is soliciting local developers and consulting with federal agencies about
potential sites.”

“Montgomery’s effort
surprised Prince George’s officials, who said
they thought they would be alone in Maryland
vying for the lucrative deal. Last year, Prince George’s
lost out to Montgomery for a $450 million
lease for a federal Health and Human Services office complex that instead
is remaining in Rockville.”

This move also surprised a few local officials including
our own economic development director, Laura Nueman. According to the
article, at a recent meeting of state and local economic officials she asked if
any other counties were planning on responding to the solicitation “and no one
spoke up.”

Huh?

What about HoCo?

There are quite a few HoCo residents who work for the FBI
and make the daily commute to DC. Why shouldn't HoCo throw its hat in the mix?

I’m willing to wager that this was never even considered and
one of the reasons is likely political. Our county exec is trying to build
statewide support for his governors race and supporting PG’s bid would be a
smart political move, particularly considering the fact that more than a few
major employers like Merkle have abandoned PG for HoCo in recent years.

Sunday, December 30, 2012

One of the holiday traditions that we enjoy is visiting the annual
holiday train display at the Ellicott City fire station. Each year volunteers put up a slightly different version on 24 X 10
foot display inside the station which always includes a series of interactive buttons
that the kids can’t seem to get enough of.

I enjoy the detail and creativity that the modelers put into
this train garden. There is always something that catches my eye and makes me
smile. This year was no exception.

The FCSMR display is serious model railroading. It consists
of a series of modules created by the different members and then linked together
at the site. The painstaking detail of the various modules is pretty impressive.

Both displays are only up for a limited time. The Ellicott City train garden ends on New Years Day and the
West Friendship display ends on January 6th.

That being said I really don’t consider myself a
photographer. I’m just a point and shoot kind of guy that appreciates a good
picture. When a photo opportunity presents itself and I find myself without my
camera for some reason, I default to my phone or iPad.

I consider them to poor platforms for good photos and so when my latest
camera crapped out I was bummed. I planned to procure a new camera after the
holidays when everything goes on sale. Instead, my sister Kelly surprised me at
Christmas with a brand new SonyDSC-TX20.

She chose well. The TX20 is a rugged beast. It is waterproof
to a depth of 16 feet, shockproof to a drop of about five feet and dust proof,
yet compact enough to slide into a pocket.

Last night I finally got around to giving Apple TV a movie
rental test run. Peanut and I decided to watch a Christmas movie so earlier in
the day we had perused the offerings in the iTunes store on my computer. We choose a film neither of us had ever seen, Christmas in the Clouds. After
dinner we settled into the couch and switched on the Apple TV.

It failed.

We were greeted with a screen that said “Setting date and
time.” I figured that this would only take a minute or so.

I figured wrong.

Fifteen minutes later, with the same message still on the screen, I got on the phone to Apple tech support. We tried manually setting the time, resetting the box and finally, a
system restore. Fail, fail and fail.

After the system restore fail I called Apple back. I now had
a case number. You know you have trouble when they give you a case number.

“Do you have an Apple router?”

Uh oh, I thought, here we go again, another example of Apple
not playing well with others.

“That’s the problem. Many of those non-Apple routers have a
firewall that blocks the Apple TV signal. You’ll need to change some settings
on the router and call Verizon. I’m sending you an email with instructions.”

“But wait a minute,” I protested, “it was working the other
day.”

“Yeah,” he responded with a note of condensation, “but that doesn't mean anything. Sometimes it will work, other times it won’t. You’ll
still need to change the router settings. In the meantime we can try unplugging
both the router and the Apple TV and see if that will get it working for now.”

It worked. An hour and half later we were finally able to watch our
movie.

Thursday, December 27, 2012

Once again it is time to open up a can of sarcasm on the
HoCo loco world of blogging with the sixth annual Dookie awards. The Dookies,
named after Hayduke not the other thing, are a time to plant tongues firmly in
cheeks and have a little fun with our blogging brethren and blog readers. So,
without further diddling and unnecessary verbosity, I hereby open the 2012 Dookie nominations.

Baltimore
may have Dan Rodricks but in HoCo blogging we have Tom Coale. Almost every
morning, the HoCo Rising blog greets us with deep navel gazing on societies ills. In return, his loyal stable of commenter’s waste no time in pointing out
what he gets wrong. For his efforts to educate the electorate, we nominate HoCo
Rising for the Rodricks Rant Dookie.

The RoyalDookieAcademy
recognizes the symbiotic relationship of Twitter and blogs and no one has done
more to tweet HoCo loco blogs than Jesse Newburn. In her zeal to tie the two
media platforms even tighter together Jesse has developed list of loco hashtags
a mile long covering every possible subject from HoCoMartnis to HoCoNature.
Count us among those that find this proliferation of #hoco’s to resemble a plate of corned beef hash, a little of everything, but very little meat. For that reason we nominate
Jesse for the Corned Beef Hash Dookie. We'd write a tweet about this but we're afraid the hashtags alone would use up all 140 characters.

Expanding beyond the simple written word, Bill Woodcock has
added video to his HoCo blogging repertoire. In his initial installments we see
Bill peering down at us while sitting in what appears to be his living room complete with a cracked mirror and a disabled smoke alarm in the background. Bill is so
close to the camera that you can almost see his nasal hairs. That’s too close
for us and brings to mind the Seinfeld episode with the close talker. The
Dookie academy nominates Bill Woodcock for the Close Talker Dookie.

Nobody likes school redistricting. No matter where the lines
are drawn, there is bound to be a group of people who cry foul. Taking sides and
calling out those who manufacture facts is a no win situation but this did not deter
Lisa Schlossnagle. In her blog, Lisa B, Mrs. S, Lisa wrote 15 posts covering
every aspect of this touchy subject. We haven’t seen coverage this deep on
a single loco hot topic since Frank Hecker scrutinized councilmantic redistricting last year. Scholarly work such as this warrants recognition so we nominate
Lisa B., Mrs. S for the Frank Hecker Dissertation Dookie.

And finally, let us recognize those who comment on blogs.
Comments make blogs more interesting and sometimes downright fun like when
certain elected officials jump in. This year there were several standouts including
the self proclaimed avenger of statists, Bill Bissenas. After much debate and
several beers, the academy felt that this years honor for best blog commenter
should go to Chris Oxenham. We choose to honor Chris with the nomination for the
Chattering Class Dookie this year because he recently became engaged and we
suspect marriage may soon mellow out his vitriol.

As always, remember that Dookie nominations are open to all.
If you have someone in the HoCo blogosphere that you feel has earned a Dookie
of your own construct, please jump in.

Wednesday, December 26, 2012

One of the benefits of writing a loco blog is meeting other writers with an interest in loco issues. That was certainly true almost three years ago when I met Sarah Hussain.
Sarah was the new girl in a local blogosphere dominated by men and, being a writer,
she wrote about that too.

I immediately liked her.

I wasn't alone either. In very short period of time, Sarah cast a wide net because she didn't just write about stuff from a bystander’s
perspective. She jumped into the loco scene with both feet, serving on the HoCo
General Plan Task Force and the Owen Brown Village Master Plan Committee. She
also joined the HoCo League of Women Voters and together with her husband
Chris, created a series of You Tube videos on the candidates for the school
board for the league.

In her own corner of Columbia
she also organized a block party and was one of the first town home owners to
participate in the Columbia Association rain garden program.

In other words, Sarah and Chris were the kind of neighbors
that make great neighborhoods even better.

She even helped changed some loco perceptions of bloggers
when she participated in the wine summit with Doug Miller from Explore Howard.

Now they are leaving. As Sarah explains Chris got a “great
job offer in California
and we are moving at the end of the month. We've liked our time here, and we
hope to be back. But for now, it's goodbye East Coast,
Maryland, and HowardCounty.”

Monday, December 24, 2012

A couple weeks ago, driving through Catonsville
on my way home, I spotted a house at the corner of Ridge Road and Rolling Road that had almost every square
inch of yard covered with inflatable holiday stuff. It was so over the top it
made me laugh out loud.

Today I took Peanut by to show her and we met the homeowner. “I
call it Max’s Redneck Christmas,” he told us.

Max had just finished adding yet another inflatable holiday
dog to the mix. “I picked it yesterday. It was marked down,” he explained.

He told us that he actually has five more that he still
needs to put up.

“I put one at the front door because people kept knocking on
my door to ask if they could take pictures.”

Sunday, December 23, 2012

In fairness at least part of the blame could be user error
based on my lack of familiarity with the system. The main problem however, was
pointed out in this story by Randall Stross in The New York Times.

“Smart-parking apps aren't as useful as might be expected
for drivers seeking open spots. When a parking space is vacated, there is a
short delay before a sensor’s signal moves through the wireless network,
reaches the centralized system and finally arrives on a driver’s phone. But if
other cars are circling, even a 30-second or one-minute wait can be too long.”

That would seem to be particularly true during a period of high
demand such as Midnight Madness. After our initial failure to harness the apps power to locate an open space, we simply headed up
the hill to Parking Lot F by the Court House where we found plenty of avilable spaces.
Even after the new pay system becomes operational on January 1st,
the spaces in this parking lot will remain free.

Saturday, December 22, 2012

In a parting gesture to the citizens of the District of Columbia,
retiring Senator Joseph Leiberman has introduced a bill in the Senate to make
DC our 51st state called New Columbia. The bill would redraw the
existing boundaries of the city by carving out The Mall, most federal
government buildings and monuments from the proposed state.

Today, in the Style section of The Washington Post, Monica
Hesse and Dan Zak have shared their own thoughts for redrawing the capital city’s
lines. Number one on their list was making our Columbia
part of their Columbia.

To
eliminate confusion, the town of Columbia, Md., shall become part of New
Columbia but be known as Old Columbia.

In case you might mistake this for anything other than
satire, consider that one of their other suggestions was to make Georgetown part of Connecticut.

Friday, December 21, 2012

The High Council of the RoyalDookieAcademy met yesterday to
begin the process of anointing accolades for the Sixth Annual Dookie Awards for
HoCo loco bloggers.

The council found a target rich environment in the blogosphere this year and will reveal their judgments on December 27th.

But the Dookies are also an egalitarian affair. All HoCo
loco bloggers and blog readers are encouraged to bestow their own honors. So consider
this your memo to prepare and help celebrate the year’s best wurst of HoCo
blogging next Thursday.

Thursday, December 20, 2012

At the announcement of the new CA gym in the former Rouse headquarters building this past Monday, Ken Ulman did his usual acknowledgement of elected
officials in attendance including Mary Kay Sigaty and the newly elected council
chair, Jen Terrasa.

It was the state delegate he didn't mention that I took note
of. Liz Bobo attended the event but Ken didn't call her out.

Was that intentional or just a simple oversight?

Whichever it was, some in the room considered the snub appropriate given her concerted efforts to stop the Town Center redevelopment process with her buddyAlan Klein.

Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Santa Claus runs an operation that employs over 12 million
people to carry out his annual Christmas sojourn. At least that is what Paul
Tronsor and Mike Mangeot told Chana Joffe-Walt in this story on All Things
Considered. Since Santa is notoriously mum on his means and methods, Chana
consulted with a couple of logistics experts to try and figure out how he pulls it off . Paul
works for FedEx and Mike works for UPS, two companies that know a thing or two
about delivering packages.

Extensive interior work on the Frank Gehry designed building
is expected to begin next year and will include the removal of the entire third
floor. Howard Hughes expects to turn the lake level space over to CA in early
2014 and CA expects the new facility to open in late summer/early fall of the
same year. Howard Hughes is expected to relocate their offices to another building
in downtown during the construction.

Saturday, December 15, 2012

When Nikki Highsmith had to cancel for this week’s podcast
we decided to invite Dave Yungmann and Luis Valdivieso to join us instead for a
freewheeling discussion of politics and the year in review. There was a lot to
cover.

David is a loco Repub and a founding member of the New CityAlliance, an organization that supports the redevelopment of Columbia’s downtown. Luis is a Dem and a
former member of the county exec’s staff. They are no strangers to spirited
political discourse.

We covered a wide range of loco stories from derecho’s to
derailments. Listening back over the show this morning I realized the conversation got a
little bogged down when we talked about sugary drinks and the growth tier legislation.
The growth tier stuff may seem boring on the surface but it has pretty deep
political implications for Ken Ulman and to a certain degree, Courtney Watson. The
county’s ban on sugary drinks on the other hand is much ado about nothing in my
opinion. If you want a sugary drink when you are on county property, just bring
with you. The ban is only on the sale of these drinks.

Of course it may be moot if the world ends on December 21st
as some believe the three thousand year Mayan calendar predicted. As far as I’m
concerned if the Mayans were so smart how come they didn't see the Spanish coming?

Assuming that the world doesn't end, we also learned yesterday that The Mall was renewing our contract for another year. They have been hosting our show since November 5, 2010 and we're grateful for their continued support.

Anyway, you can listen to 80th episode of “and
then there’s that…” here.

Thursday, December 13, 2012

A week ago I wrote that the loco Repub Central Committee leaned
heavily towards a tea party ideology. Since then I have heard from two members
of the nine member committee. They both said I had it wrong.

Apparently it is the HoCo Repub Club that is in the hands of
tea party partisans, not the central committee. I was further informed that two
tea party activists actually resigned from the central committee several months
because they felt the committee was too moderate. One loco Repub went so far as
to label the current club leadership as “crazy.”

That being said, the post in question referred to a comment
made in a loco politico bull session by a Repub who is active in loco politics.
This individual put the club and central committee in the same ideological
basket. I was merely sharing that perception, which I should note was shared over drinks. I did not intend it to be taken
as gospel.

One of the committee members who contacted me told that they
“staunchly support” Allan Kittleman. The other told me that eight of the nine
members are often called RINO’s by Repubs outside of HoCo because of their
moderate views.

In other words, I got it wrong. Consider this a blog apology (or blogology).
Contrary to what some may believe, I do try to get it right here. Thank you for
setting the record straight.

It’s a been a week now since Judge Koteen upheld the impeachment of former school board member Allen Dyer and the ripple effect of
that action is beginning to be felt. Prior to the ruling, Allen’s allies on the
board openly defended him. Since the ruling they have been noticeably quiet.

Brian Meshkin and Cindy Vaillaincourt voted against the
impeachment. In this article by Brandi Jefferson in Elkridge Patch, Cindy told the
reporter “The very existence of this removal action ... constitutes a threat
against me and chills my exercise of speech on behalf of myself and my constituents.”

After hearing extensive testimony and weighing all the
evidence, here are a couple of highlights from the judges's conclusion about Allen's service on the board:

"The Respondent's repeated efforts to act unilaterally
without authority from the full Board, and contrary to positions adopted by the Board,
interfered with the Board's efficient operations, and the Board's ability to
conduct business and serve the best interests of the students of HCPSS."

"Although the Respondent was elected to his position, the
statute relied upon by the CountyBoard authorizes removal
from office for misconduct in office even for elected Board members. I conclude
that the CountyBoard has established that the Respondent
is responsible for misconduct in office under the Education Article, even
though the Board did not prove that each of the allegations it raised
constituted misconduct in office. The
Board did prove that the Respondent was responsible for repeated violations of
important rules and policies that were sufficiently serious to establish
misconduct in office and render the Respondent unfit to serve as a member of
the CountyBoard."

The entire 100 page decision is a scathing indictment of
Allen’s behavior. Those who openly supported him and allied with his causes are
similarly guilty by association.

Or, as my mother used to say, when you lay down with dogs you get up with fleas.

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

If you are one of those who find Christmas shopping to be a painful experience you may be comforted to know that your discomfort is by
design. According to this article by Oliver Burkeman in The New York Times, “evidence
suggests that the less comfortable you are during the seasonal shopping spree,
the more money you’ll spend.”

“So stores crank up music, repeat the same songs, over and
over again, pipe in smells, race shoppers around to far-flung points of
purchase and clog their heads with confusing offers. All of which makes it more
likely we’ll part more readily with more money.”

It works too. Yesterday I went into Hot Topic in The Mall to
pick up a few things for Peanut (she loves the store!). Though the store was
playing a familiar Rolling Stones song, it was blaring so loud that I found
it to be annoying. That being said, I still made a purchase.

“Music played at high volumes, for example, may be
irritating, but researchers from PennState and the National
University of Singapore concluded it was one of several factors that leads to
overstimulation and “a momentary loss of self-control, thus enhancing the
likelihood of impulse purchase.”

Perhaps this is one of the reasons that online shopping is expected
to increase by 12% over last year. Online shopping now makes up 6.3% of all
retail sales and continues to increase year after year.

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

As the Tribune Company, parent company of The Baltimore Sun, prepares to exit
bankruptcy it is exploring the possibility of selling some of its newspaper
assets, including Baltimore’s
major newspaper. According to this story by Edmund Lee and Serena
Saitto in Bloomberg, the company believes a sale of some of its papers “would
bring an influx of cash to the company after four years of bankruptcy.”

“The owners may hold onto the larger newspapers, such as the
ones in Los Angeles and Chicago,
and look to sell the smaller titles more immediately, said Reed Phillips,
managing partner of investment bank DeSilva & Phillips LLC.”

The Abell Foundation has previously expressed an interest in buying
The Sun. According to this story by Gary Haber in The Baltimore Business
Journal the foundation expressed an interest in buying the paper before the
Tribune company sought protection of the bankruptcy courts.

“If the Abell Foundation were to buy the Sun, it would be a
homecoming of sorts for the newspaper. Arunah Sheperdson Abell founded the Sun
in 1837. It was owned by the A.S. Abell Co., until 1986 when it was sold to
Times-Mirror Co. in 1986 in a deal that included the Baltimore Evening Sun and
other media properties.”

Monday, December 10, 2012

It never fails. No matter how simple a device appears to be
I will inevitably encounter a problem. Such was my experience with Apple TV
this weekend.

I didn't really need Apple TV. I bought it because I thought
it would be a fun gift for the house this Christmas. Buying a gift for the
whole family to share is a tradition I inherited from my father when he sometimes would buy a gift
that everyone could enjoy, at least theoretically. After one too many
movie nights sidetracked by a malfunctioning FIOS box, I figured for a hundred bucks Apple TV
would give us more options.

So I plunked down the hundred bucks at the Apple store in The
Mall for Apple TV.

“Do you need an HDMI cable?” the store associate inquired.

“No thanks, I already have that.” I was thinking that I
already two HDMI cables. When I originally hooked up my HDTV, I discovered the
HDMI cable I bought was too short so I went back out and bought a longer one. I
decided to keep the shorter one, just in case.

I should have recognized that question as a technological red flag. I didn't and consequently I began to see why I might need yet another
HDMI cable.

I was an early adapter with my HDTV. Six years ago, when we
moved into our new home, I bought the biggest LCD TV available at the time. It
was a 40 inch Sony Bravia and it cost me four grand. This was back before the
great recession hit and many thought spending four grand on a TV was a perfectly
sensible thing to do.

Today of course you can buy a bigger and better TV for about
a quarter of that. Sigh.

Anyway, as I went to hook up my hockey puck sized Apple TV box to my TV I realized that it only had one HDMI port and that was being used
by the FIOS box.

The solution of course was to add another piece of hardware to mix.
A trip to the Best Buy store in Columbia
resulted in the purchase of a Rocketfish 4-port HDMI Selector, and another
HDMI cable, adding another hundred bucks to the cost of my hundred dollar Apple TV. The worst part, it includes yet another remote!

Saturday, December 08, 2012

The crowds turned out for Midnight Madness in Ellicott City last night. By the time we arrived around
6:30 PM the parking lot up by the courthouse was already full. Though a light rain
fell intermittently throughout the evening, it didn't put a damper on the
festivities.

After grabbing dinner at the Ellicott Mills Brewing Company,
we headed down Main Street
to check out the scene. It wasn't long before we caught a whiff of something
that smelled downright delicious. It was the La Pearle Waffles food truck which
had commandeered a parking spot along a very narrow stretch of sidewalk.

Further along we ran into Gunther Miller pedaling Choose Insanity bumper stickers. Gunther told me that sales were a bit off from
previous years as the novelty has begun to wear off. To counter this he has
diversified by adding HoCo magnets with turkey vultures to his product
offerings.

High school madrigals are a traditional part of Midnight
Madness and last night was no exception.

At the bottom of Main
Street I spoke to a hot dog vendor who had
commandeered another parking spot. Brendan told me that he was the guy behind
LaLa’s ice cream parlor. The shop has been “coming soon” for almost a year now.

“It’s been a challenge trying to get open,” he told me. One
of the problems he faced was the ceiling height in the space. It is two inches
lower that the health department regulations require. He told me that he
believes they've resolved that issue and are now on track for an April 2013
opening.

We finished up our Madness night with a wine sample at The Wine Bin. They were offering a red called Santa's Little Helper. It's the kind of wine you buy for the label, not what's in the bottle.

Friday, December 07, 2012

In the 99 page decision, the judge levels several broadsides
at Allen’s conduct as a school board member. A few of the highlights were:

“I have also concluded that the Respondent blatantly
violated the confidentiality provisions of the Ethics Regulations and Policies
after receiving unambiguous notice from the Ethics Panel 82 regarding his
obligation to maintain the confidentiality of the Ethics proceedings. His mass disclosure of the ethics materials
was not justified by an anonymous and partially inaccurate leak of limited
information or by erroneous advice from his private attorney. The Respondent also disclosed other confidential
information regarding the ethics investigation and invited Board members to
attend the closed hearing even before the leak occurred.”

“I conclude that the Respondent's misconduct was substantial
and harmful to the operations of the CountyBoard and the school
system. The Respondent's blatant disregard of the confidentiality requirements of the ethics
process demonstrated that the Respondent failed to accept that the Ethics Regulations and
Policies applied equally to him as to everyone else. He demonstrated disdain for the ethics
process, the Ethics Panel, and its counsel, put his own interests above the
confidentiality of other participants, jeopardized the Board's neutral role in
handling ethics matters, and undermined the willingness of individuals to use
the ethics process to resolve future ethics complaints by obliterating the
confidentiality provisions.”

“The Respondent contends that his removal is improper
because the CountyBoard has violated his right to free speech. The evidence does not support this claim.”

To2C was actually mentioned in the document under Findings
of Fact items 99, 101, and 108. I am honored to be included in this document, even
though in #108 the judge referred to me as Woodbones.

Thursday, December 06, 2012

Administrative Law Judge Douglas Koteen has ruled in favor
of the HoCo Board of Education in their impeachment of former board member
Allen Dyer. The judges’ ruling vindicates the actions of the school board members
who voted for impeachment by finding Dyer guilty of most, if not all counts
against him.

Janet Siddiqui, Sandra French, Ellen Flynn Giles, and Frank
Aquino all voted in favor of impeachment. Brian Meshkin and Cindy Vaillancourt
voted against the action. Alexis Adams, the student member of the board at the
time, also voted in favor of removing Allen.

Count me as one of those who thought that continuing with
these proceedings after Dyer was defeated in the primaries as a waste of time
and money. I may have been wrong about that. This ruling sends a a pretty clear message to all current and future board members that behavior like this is
unacceptable. That alone would seem to validate the effort.

Two separate sources have recently informed me that new school board member
Ann De Lacy showed up at the Board of Education headquarters the day after
winning her seat on the board asking to be shown her office.

Apparently she didn't get the memo. Board members don’t get offices but I do understand they get
a locker of some sort. Maybe that’s where she can store her rocks.

In addition to the annual Midnight Madness celebration in
Ellicott City tomorrow night, it is also open studio night at the HoCo Center for the Arts. Local artists working in a variety of media will open their studios
to the public in the re purposed elementary school from 5:30 to 8:30 pm. We went
last year and were pleasantly surprised at the variety and quality of the work
of our HoCo loco artists.

It is also a good opportunity to browse the center’s
galleries.

My best advice is to go early, before heading down to the
fun on Main Street.
The arts center is in a residential neighborhood with somewhat limited parking
and they don’t have a spiffy little parking app to help you find an open space.
By 7:00 PM cars will be lining the streets surrounding the building.

This weekend is also the last Second Sunday Market of the
season. So if you haven’t stocked your larder with that good loco honey yet,
this would be a good opportunity to do so. After this Sunday the market will go on winter break until next April.

Last night our group of HoCo loco politico watchers gathered
again for another Pub Politics bull session. The eight attendees included men,
women, Dems and Repubs. There is no formal agenda and anyone can bring up
anything for discussion as long as it relates to the loco politico scene. We last met in August.

The first topic battered around was the split in the loco
Repub ranks. The Repub members lamented that the local party, much like the
national party has divided into two camps. One camp is more closely tied to the
tea party movement and is personified by the Loretta Shields, the Chair of the
Howard County Republican Central Committee. The other camp is more moderate and
personified by Allan Kittleman, State Senator and presumed candidate for county
executive in 2014. It is almost as if the Repubs are starting to behave like Dems.

The discussion then moved on to Chris Merdon. Many believe
that Chris will attempt to regain his D1 council seat in 2014 when Courtney Watson makes
her move for the exec seat. Another Repub, Bob Flanagan is also still interested
the D1 council seat. You may recall that Bob narrowly lost to Courtney last
time around.

Allan and Courtney are not the only ones eyeing the exec seat
either but Guy Guzzone does not appear to be one of them. If Guy
does decide to pass this on this race, some speculate that Mary Kay Sigaty may
challenge Courtney for the Dem spot in the race. That’s a fight that Allan would
no doubt like to see.

The biggest, and perhaps most heated discussion of the
evening centered around the recently passed growth tiers legislation. Unless
you live in the western part of the county you could be excused for not paying
much attention to this but I can assure that the loco politicos are. Rather
than doing my own mediocre rehash of the debate, I suggest you check out this post
by Tom Coale.

The nice thing about this group is that no one makes
personal attacks. For the past two years now we have been able to have spirited
discussions about local politics without being offensive. The only rule
governing the group is that all must agree on any new participant and that anonymity
must be maintained. Last night, one of the newest members informed me that this
was commonly known the Chatham House Rule.

Tuesday, December 04, 2012

After Halloween, I pretty much stop driving my BMW. It gets
to spend the winter months nestled in the garage, awaiting the return of warmer
days.

Yesterday and today I made an exception.

I wasn't the only one either. The unseasonably warm weather made today a sports car day. I
even spotted a couple of coupes with their tops down.

And then there was this classic roadster I came across in a parking lot off Dobbin Road in Columbia. It’s a Datsun 2000. My colleague Bill Harrison figures it to be a 1968 vintage. He once owned a 1984 Nissan300 ZX so he knows a thing or two about the brand. Before 1983 Nissans were
marketed as Datsuns.

The Datsun 2000 was a precursor to the Z cars which began
with the 240 Z in 1970. I was a little surprised to see that this forty four
year old 2000 was sporting regular license tags as opposed to historic tags.

Judging from its condition I’d wager that it spends the
winter in a garage too.

Monday, December 03, 2012

In 2004, Veli Demirel attempted to rezone a two acre parcel
at the intersection of Frederick
Road and Centennial
Lane from residential to commercial. At that time
he was proposing to build a two story commercial building on the site. His
request was denied.

In 2010 Veli went back to the zoning board. This time tried
to change the zoning from R-20 to the relatively new OT District or Office Transition District.

“This district is established to allow low-impact office
uses adjacent to areas of residential zoning. The OT district is a floating
district that will provide a transition along the edges of residential areas
impacted by nearby retail/ employment areas or arterial highways carrying high
volumes of traffic. The standards of this district should result in small-scale
office buildings on attractively-designed sites that are compatible with
neighboring residential uses.”

The R-20 zoning allows approximately two single family homes
per acre which means Veli could build four homes under the existing
zoning. His 2010 plan called for a pair of two story office buildings. His
request was denied.

Now he’s back again with another bid to get the OT zoning but
this time with five two story buildings with apartments over office space.
Each building would be approximately 5,000 square feet. Last month the
Department of Planning and Zoning recommended this plan be approved.

The County Council, sitting as Zoning Board, will vote on the
recommendation a week from today.

Sunday, December 02, 2012

It may have taken them 35 years to get there but last night
the Columbia Orchestra had its first sellout performance at the 747 seat Rouse Theatre.
They rocked the full house with a powerful performance of one of my all time
favorite pieces,Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No.1. I can’t recall where or when I first heard it but it soon
became a favorite. I've always been a fan of big piano music and Concerto No. 1
is big piano music. Last night Anne Kosclieny tore up the keys of a twelve foot concert
grand as conductor Jason Love whipped the orchestra through its paces.

They rocked.

We almost missed it. Earlier in the week I had noted that
the orchestra was a having a concert on Saturday night. We considered it a Saturday night option. I really didn't think it would be necessary to purchase tickets
in advance.

I was wrong. We were lucky to snag the last two seats together and
only because someone turned them back in.

Is it just us or does anyone else find the seats in Rouse to be a little tight?

Anyway...

Last Tuesday, as I was heading back to my office, I heard
this story on All Things Considered, by Shankar Vedantam, about whether orchestras really need conductors

“They seem important. After all, they're standing in the
middle of the stage and waving their hands. But the musicians all have scores
before them that tell them what to play. If you took the conductor away, could
the orchestra manage on its own?”

It’s a great story. The bottom line is that they have now
scientifically concluded that a conductor, particularly a good conductor, makes
the music better.

Jason Love is a good conductor. They've even made a bobble
head of him.

To cap the evening off the orchestra treated their record
audience with Sleigh Bells.

Saturday, December 01, 2012

The story about the county’s plan to build a new apartment complex for the homeless provided a surprisingly target rich environment for us
this week. Preparing for the show earlier in the day both Paul and lamented
that our selection of local stories for this news cycle were a little weak. As
we talking I received an email from George Berkheimer, a colleague at The
Business Monthly. He pointed out that in order to build this new complex the
county would be replacing an existing 38 unit mobile home community called
Beechcrest. The new development would have 33 individual apartments.

“That’s five in the hole, the way I count it,” he wrote.

Or more. Consider that most of those 38 units house more
than one person. It seems as if the county housing department is just creating more
work for our guest, Bita Dayhoff, the president of the Community ActionCouncil.

Bita is a gem and we are lucky to have her. She’s smart and
incredibly charming. Three years ago I had the opportunity to work with Bita on
renewing the lease for the Food Bank in Columbia. I found her to be a tough negotiator and a constant advocate for the less fortunate in
HoCo. She sits on the front line of HoCo hard times.

We also talked a bit about Courtney Watson's anti bullying initiative.
Courtney had proposed a resolution to “Encourage the General Assembly to
provide the necessary resources to appropriate agencies to implement the use of
multidisciplinary teams to address bullying, harassment, and intimidation among
students.”

She has since tabled the bill. At best it had lukewarm
support. The school board didn't even endorse it and it is questionable whether
she had the votes on the council to get it passed. It was widely criticized as
lacking any substance. As one of her colleagues on the council pointed out to
me, even the people who testified at the public hearing in support testified
more about the problem of bullying than about supporting the actual resolution.
For example, Brian Meshkin spent his most of three minutes giving a campaign
speech telling the council about everything he’s done about bullying. Courtney’s
resolution merely provided him a jumping off point for another self promotion pitch.

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This is a personal web log about stuff around here. The opinions and views of the blogger are just that, opinions and views of the blogger, not the bloggers employer, parish priest, probation officer or anyone else for that matter. Comments posted here may be attributable to others. If the content presented here offends you in some way you are probably taking yourself too seriously. If it is journalism that you are looking for, buy a newspaper.